With ironic flourish, as background soundtrack, Billy Holiday’s whimsical “Them There Eyes” opens Berkshire Theater Group’s brilliant production of Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?”. It was, according to Martin, a world-renowned, prize-winning architect, nearing his 50th birthday, comfortably secure in his perfectly fidelitous 25 year marriage, “those eyes” on a goat he sees in a field while on a country house search that changes his life. "The Goat"s ostensible

The opening line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident”, of HOLD THESE TRUTHS, Jeanne Sakata’s inspiring, 90-minute, solo-performance dramatization of the life of Gordon Hirabayashi who, of Japanese ancestry, challenged incarceration by his own government in World War II, arrives disarmingly. Without spoiling the deft staging of how the line is delivered, it’s fair to say that director Lisa Roethe pointedly introduces Hirabyashi as one of us. The irony is that his story

Ultimately, the musical stage version of the 1984 coming-of-age film comedy, THE FLAMINGO KID, in its world premiere at Hartford Stage begs the question – with no compelling answer – of why it was made into a musical. Despite a Tony-award winning director and writer/lyricist, a seasoned Broadway composer and a uniformly skilled cast, after 2 and half hours, 21 songs (plus 5 reprises), THE FLAMINGO KID never achieves real engagement, energy or excitement for all its estimable

After a screeching, joyful (offstage) orgasm with her girlfriend Ry, the unemployed Octavia discovers a mole on her clitoris. When she shares the news with her roommates, Imani, an unattached lesbian, wannabe standup comic, and June, an accountant with boyfriend blues, Imani proclaims “If you can’t make a drink day outta the day you get a clit mole….” and passes around the Jim Bean and reefer. So begins, a raucous, crazy, dangerous girls-night-out. And so, too, begins

The New Times theatre critic Ben Brantley was the featured guest at The Salisbury Forum on May 17 in Salisbury CT at which I was asked to interview him in a conversational format. The full video, as posted by The Forum on YouTube, runs about 1:07: my discussion with Ben is about 45 minutes and then some Q&A, but stay through the end. I got an off-the- wall last question and Ben's specific response is revelatory It's a great conversation - in which Ben is both entertaining and

Bold doesn’t sufficiently describe the way, way, Off-Off-Broadway production of Tennessee William’s A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE at Mister Rogers in Corona Heights, Brooklyn. From actors and creative team who bonded back at NYU drama school comes a laser-hot production that features the first genderqueer actor playing Blanche DuBois, Tennessee William’s famous female tragic figure. But the production transcends the casting milestone (approved by Williams’ literary estate)

HADESTOWN, the haunting and beautiful poetic folk opera that imaginatively fuses the myths of Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone, is not only a marker in the maturation of American musical but also testament to the ancient Greek’s timeless power of storytelling. Its book, lyrics and music are both labor and love of songwriter Anais Mitchell, who birthed the project in community theatre in Vermont in 2006 and concept album in 2010. Productions at the New York Th

Just when one’s ready to scream “Enough already!” when it comes to Broadway musicals recycled from Hollywood movies, along comes TOOTSIE based on the popular 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman as the pain-in-the-ass, out-of-work actor who pretends to be a woman to land a job. Thirty-five years later, TOOTSIE gets hilariously re-invented - making it funnier than the original film - and smartly updated - having fun with our evolved notions of gender and sexuality. The res